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<title>The Tale of the Empty Cookie Jar by Evilkitten3</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104800">The Tale of the Empty Cookie Jar</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilkitten3/pseuds/Evilkitten3'>Evilkitten3</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>OC Shorts [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon Jewish Character, Family, Gen, Jewish Character, Jewish Humor, LGBTQ Jewish Character(s), Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, One Shot, Short One Shot, Unconventional Families, maybe the real cookies were the friends we made along the way, no one. is the cookie jar even real? maybe not, who stole the cookies from the cookie jar?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:20:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>802</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24104800</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilkitten3/pseuds/Evilkitten3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Barbara Abulafia just needed to grab an energy bar and some coffee to go pick up her kid from the airport. She didn't need her other two kids to be awake, nor did she need to know that someone had eaten all of the cookies in the cookie jar. Especially since the Abulafia household contained a grand total of zero cookie jars.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lev Abulafia &amp; Barbara Abulafia, Lev Abulafia &amp; Meiling Wen, Meiling Wen &amp; Barbara Abulafia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>OC Shorts [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1739737</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Tale of the Empty Cookie Jar</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
  <p>Ah, morning! When the day is just getting started, the world is awakening, and the birds are twittering away! And no sane human is cheerful, Barbara Abulafia thought to herself.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Typically, she wouldn’t be getting up this early, especially not on a weekend. But Xiuying was coming back from– well, from wherever she’d gone off to this time, and Barbara had agreed to go pick her up since her driver’s license had yet to be returned to her.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It wasn’t the first time Barbara had found herself picking up the daughter of her old time friend Jian - Xiu was practically her own daughter as well, after all - but it was one of the earliest in recent memory. She would’ve asked the young woman to take a cab or something, but quite frankly taxi drivers had enough to deal with and didn’t need to add “met Xiuying Wen” to the list of reasons they needed a raise.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Barbara shook her head to clear her thoughts and headed to the kitchen to grab an energy bar. She’d have a real breakfast later, she decided. Cereal or something. <em>Healthy</em> cereal, of course, like grape nuts or muesli. Yum.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. Blinking once, she turned to see Lev and Meiling sitting at the dining room table, looking somewhat guilty. Well, Lev looked guilty. Meiling looked exasperated.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“What did you do?” she asked, holding back a yawn.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“It wasn’t me!” her beautiful, wonderful, incredible son who could maybe apply himself in school a little more and be less of a disaster magnet, said instantly.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Well, it wasn’t <em>me</em>,” Meiling sniffed. Not that she needed to. Meiling was uncomfortably well behaved. Frankly, Barbara was worried that the young girl tried too hard to be accepted, but that wasn’t a thought for - she checked her watch - 5:30 in the morning.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Someone took the cookies from the cookie jar,” Lev told his mother, sticking his tongue out at his sister. For a moment, the three of them were silent, all refraining from singing the song about cookies being stolen from a cookie jar. But it was too early for a spontaneous musical number, and Barbara was short on time.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“We don’t have a cookie jar,” Meiling added. “But one showed up while we were all asleep and now it’s empty.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Maybe a passing deity decided to drop it off,” Barbara offered, starting to make herself a cup of coffee. She’d need it if she wanted to get to and from the airport without any casualities.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Santa’s not allowed in the good Jewish household,” Lev declared, causing Meiling to snort. A meme, Barbara presumed, grateful that she didn’t get the joke. It was true, though. They had a good long tradition of warding off the Claus with their handy-dandy menorah, and Barbara doubted it would stop anytime soon.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“It’s June,” Meiling said flatly. Lev shrugged.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“He’s got the free time,” he argued. Barbara sighed.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Kids, just make some cookies, okay? I have to go get Xiu from the airport while there’s still an airport to get her from.” In the back of Barbara’s mind, she wondered if her son and honorary daughter had just tricked her into letting them make cookies, but she quickly brushed the thought aside. They both knew perfectly well that she’d have no problem with it so long as they didn’t try to eat them all in one go and saved an equal portion for her (she had, after all, paid for the ingredients).</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“What about the cookie jar?” Meiling asked seriously. “I’m a little worried about it. I– I don’t think inanimate objects are supposed to just– start existing out of nowhere.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Isn’t that how the universe was created?” Lev asked, hiding a grin as his sister glowered at him.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“We’ll deal with the jar when I get back,” Barbara said decisively. “You’ve clearly already opened it, so if it turns out to have been Pandora’s box or something, I expect you two to put those evils right back where you found them. No excuses.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Actually, it was–” Lev began, but his mother cut him off.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Yes, yes, a jar, I know, kid.” She yawned. “Just– don’t touch the damn thing. If it’s evil, we’ll deal with it, but I’m not having my kids sucked into an alternate dimension while I’m out, understand?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Gotcha,” Meiling nodded seriously. “We’ll wait until you get back to get sucked into an alternate dimension, then.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Glad we’re clear on that.” Giving her kids a tired smile, Barbara headed for the garage. By the time she and Xiuying returned, the cookie jar had disappeared, presumably headed for a better place. They all agreed to smash it should they ever see it again, but otherwise were content to move on with their lives.</p>
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